User reviews

There's a Catholic Family, with a widowed grandmother (Oma), her rather uptight daughter Marie who has her own family; a husband, two young boys and an older daughter Martina who's living in Rome. Oma travels solo to Rome to get the pope's blessing for something and finds her granddaughter living with a rocker and working behind a bar in a rather rough café rather than with a nice Catholic family as an au pair (as her mother thinks). (I won't bore you with the synopsis, as you can read that elsewhere).

The main ingredients are a few chance encounters and the obvious culture shocks (which may now and then seem a bit contrived) but it's mainly about human kindness and people trying to get along with each other in varying degrees of success. The over protective Marie is (obviously, again) proved wrong. Oma and her granddaughter are way more laid back and get along just fine. There's also a nice performance by Giancarlo Giannini who plays a lovable rogue named Lorenzo.

Yes, it's feelgood fluff, but it often made me smile and even laugh out loud a few times. If you are looking for high brow cinema this isn't it. If you are looking for some good-natured escapism this might just do the trick.